For whom do wedding bells toll? A growing number of Americans, apparently. Everything from a surge in engagement ring sales to booked-up venue rentals indicate we’re headed for a major marriage boom.
Writing this off to pent-up demand doesn’t fully capture what’s happening here, for better or worse. The history of previous marriage booms suggests that human emotions, particularly those associated with collective traumas, can play a big role in nudging people to the altar—and then ensuring they remain married or pushing them to split up.
If you look at marriage booms and busts over the long run, a few trends stand out. The first and most obvious is that economic distress puts the kibosh on tying the knot. Data scientist Randal Olson compiled the data to show the effects of major events like world wars and economic crashes on U.S. marriage and divorce rates.
The data conclusively shows that the Great Depression profoundly suppressed marriages. A recent study that examined the 20% decline in marriage rates from 1929 to 1933 determined that this precipitous drop was a direct consequence of economic hardship, with the biggest declines in marriage rates coming in areas hit hardest by the calamity. (Something similar, if less dramatic, happened in the wake of our own generation's Great Recession.)
What’s interesting, though, is that the study found marriages consummated during economic downturns actually proved longer-lasting than unions in periods of relative prosperity—possibly because of the stronger bonds forged by enduring tumultuous times together. This highlights an important, if little-appreciated dimension of the ebb and flow of marriage rates: quantity isn’t the same as quality. That's something to keep in mind as the wedding bells ring anew.
If economic traumas depress marriage rates, other types of society-wide shocks goose them far more dramatically than the simple return of prosperity. Wars, for example, almost always spark significant increases in unions. This was true in the wake of World War I and II, as returning soldiers got married in great numbers in almost all Western nations affected by the conflict.
A good case in point is France. Prior to the end of WW I, the number of newlyweds each year had dropped to about four for every thousand people. Once peace returned, that number skyrocketed to 32—a rise of 800% . Other nations registered comparable, if lesser, increases, though it’s worth mentioning that 1918 also witnessed a global pandemic that left least 50 million people dead—precisely the kind of catastrophe that might contribute to marital turnover. Likewise, in the wake of WW II, the huge increase in U.S. weddings beget another, more famous burst of activity: the baby boom.
But again, there’s more to the story than deferred decisions. What often gets left out of these stories of postwar marriage booms is the fact that divorce increased as well at this time, often dramatically. In fact, the only significant spike in divorces in the U.S. in the past century and a half took place right at the end of the WW II, when a number of impulsive, ill-conceived marriages forged as lovers prepared to leave for war unraveled.
This hints at another deeper truth. When a collective trauma hits a society, it forces people to reevaluate their priorities and their partners. Questions that may have seemed remote or irrelevant—whether, for example, they wanted to grow old alone—suddenly acquire new urgency. Some individuals tie the knot; others get divorced; others do both, repeatedly.